The latest issue of the Society’s journal Evelyn Waugh Studies has been posted. Here is a summary of its contents from the Society’s secretary Jamie Collinson:
It’s not often that someone finds a new angle into Waugh that yields genuine insight, but Bradley D. Clissold has done so with his brilliant essay on Waugh’s use of postcards. The performative aspect of these delighted Waugh, and he used them to excruciating comic effect. Clissold quotes from some of the best examples, and as a result his essay is as funny as it is original.Jeffrey Manley reviews the latest edition of the Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh – Robbery under Law: The Mexican-Object Lesson. This definitive collection of Waugh’s work might benefit from a consistent policy towards quotation, he says. Among the news: The John H. Wilson Jr. Evelyn Waugh Undergraduate Essay Contest is open for submissions, and offers a $500 prize. Details in the Studies.In 2019, Castle Howard commissioned the UK-based sound artist Jonathan Webb to produce a site-specific sound installation for The Brideshead Festival: 75 Years of Print and Screen. With the cancellation of The Brideshead Festival in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Webb instead produced Adapting Arcadia (2021), an online narrative audio piece that playfully uses music, sound design and archival recordings to explore the enduring appeal of Brideshead Revisited on screen. There’s a link to this excellent work in the Studies.Finally, I’m embarrassed that, despite my day-job in the music industry, I’d never come across the band Flyte. They are self-evidently Waugh influenced – if the name wasn’t enough, they called their debut album The Loved Ones. There’s an interview with them linked to in the News.
